Whisper Network

First-person plural narration describes the lives of a group of working women: They are too busy, overqualified, and trying to parent while working.

The narrative switches to third-person omniscient narration. On March 20, Desmond Bankole, the CEO of Truviv, the Dallas athletic wear company where the women work, dies. The women do not know or particularly care about Bankole, but his death means that their boss Ames Garrett, currently the Senior Vice President of North American Legal Affairs, could become the new CEO. This prospect scares Adriana Valdez, who hates Ames. Ames hates her too because she’s someone “he didn’t enjoy looking at” (7). It is clear that Ames has a bad history with women at the company.

In her office, Grace Stanton is painfully pumping breast milk, while Ardie is hiding from Ames. Ardie is upset that Ames thinks that Sloane Glover, the Vice President of North American Legal Affairs, needs to ask him for permission to go out to lunch, so now Ardie is waiting for Sloane to text her back. Grace does not understand Ardie’s concern about Ames, believing that he is a good person who has done some bad things. Ardie did not breastfeed her adopted son Michael, but the two women lament the fact that technology is so advanced yet breast pumps are still so archaic.

Sloane rushes in late to a work meeting to discuss Bankole’s death, noting that one of the lawyers is a woman that Sloane has never seen before. Sloane is late because she was meeting with her daughter Abigail’s school principal, but she lies about this, knowing that talking about having children makes men view women as lesser employees, though the same is not true for men. Ames winks at her and she thinks, “Working with Ames was like sitting next to someone who was constantly kicking your shin under the table” (12). As Grace talks about Truviv’s legal obligations, she makes subtle shifts in her demeanor to show authority. Sloane is in the middle of explaining how other companies have handled CEO deaths when Ames interrupts her to say exactly what she had been saying.

After the meeting, Ames tells Sloane that the new woman, Katherine Bell, will be in Sloane’s section. Sloane is upset that she wasn’t consulted about the hire, but Ames reminds her that he has the power to make these decisions without her. However, when Sloane asks where Katherine’s office will be, Ames reverses his tactic and tells her to figure this out—she is the Senior Vice President, after all. Sloane hates Ames for acting as though he has “selective amnesia” about their past relationship.

The chapter concludes with a deposition transcript in which Sloane discusses her affair with Ames.

The first-person plural narrator confesses that almost all the women in Dallas have read Lean In, a real-life book published in 2013 by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, in which she coaches women in the workforce on how to assert themselves. Following the book’s advice did not get the Truviv women the respect and raises they had hoped for, but they agree that Sandberg “was right about something. We had to lean in. It was the only way to hear the whispers” (23).

In the third-person omniscient narration, Grace, the tired new mom, is falling asleep on the toilet at work when two other women enter the bathroom. She cannot identify the voices, but hears them talking about a spreadsheet that has the names of all the sleazy guys in Dallas on it. One found a friend of her father’s on it; they discuss adding names to the list themselves. The conversation ends dismissively: “That guy obviously did something to piss someone off. So, I’m sure he deserves it. They should all lose their jobs” (26). Grace thinks about due process.

Although the women try to better manage their time, they have very little flexibility between work, children, and the physical appearance maintenance expected of professional women.

Sloane’s husband Derek calls to tell her that he did two things from her to-do list. They recall a fight they had the previous night—one of many about how to handle the bullying that their daughter Abigail has been facing in school. A few months ago, Sloane learned that Abigail was having thoughts of self-harm: “Perhaps everyone would be happier if Abigail were dead” (30)—a response to bullying text messages from classmates filled with gendered slurs. Sloane wants to sue the school, but cannot, as it’s the same school district that employs Derek.

Ardie comes into Sloane’s office. There is something that Sloane needs to talk to Ardie about, but she stays silent, appreciating Ardie’s mockery of younger employees who took Bankole’s death as a reason to take the day off.

Katherine comes in and asks to go home. Sloane dislikes Katherine simply because she is young and beautiful. Ames appears behind Katherine and asks her out for a welcome drink. Sloane is shocked. When Sloane left her old job for Truviv, her mentor Elizabeth Moretti told her: “Watch out for Ames Garret” (35). After six months at Truviv, Ames and Sloane started having sex. Fearful that Katherine will be Ames’s next conquest, Sloane invites herself out for drinks with them.

The chapter ends with messages on Truviv Instant Messenger dated April 21 calling Sloane the same gendered slurs that Abigail got on her phone.

The first-person plural narration explains that across departments, women do not know each other, but they can tell who belongs to which department based on how they look: “We needed only to have knocked at the door to one another’s worlds to find out how our histories knitted themselves together, weaving shared threads into a noose of our own making” (40).

Rosalita Guillen and the other women who clean the office generally come in after the other people who work in the offices have left. This night, they see that someone is still working. Rosalita’s tactic for being invisible to the office employees is to move quickly. She goes into the office that’s still in use to get the trash and sees Sloane. Rosalita thinks that Sloane is “the exact right type of white woman to cause an international media firestorm if she ever went missing” (42). Sloane asks Rosalita how her night is going; when Rosalita asks Sloane the same, Sloane replies, “How do you say ‘shitty’ in Spanish?“ (42), and then immediately starts a babbling apology for her assumption that Rosalita speaks Spanish, but Rosalita is not offended. Out of Sloane’s office, Rosalita tells her new co-worker Crystal to bring Sloane some water; she could tell that Sloane was drunk.

The next morning, Sloane texts Grace and Ardie that Ames was on his best behavior during drinks. Grace texts them about the conversation she overheard in the bathroom.